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Photo: Unknown
The demise of the passenger pigeon is a tragic example of the effect of human interests on nature.
Passenger pigeons once ranked amongst the most numerous birds on the
planet. Their flocks were so huge that they could block out the sunlight
for days, with their chattering heard for miles. A single tree could
hold over one hundred nests. Unfortunately, their survival depended on
large numbers.
One of the few survival strategies of passenger pigeons was predation
satiation. The huge flocks needed large forests to nest in, and each
nesting pair would lay only one egg. The pigeons would nurture their
offspring, known as a squab, for two weeks before pushing it out of the
nest. The helpless squab would then flounce around on the ground until
it developed the ability to fly. The forest floor would be littered with
hundreds of thousands of helpless squabs — easy pickings for wolves,
foxes, weasels and hawks. Yet the majority of squabs would learn to fly
before their predators could make a significant dent in their numbers.Photo: cotins
However, while passenger pigeons were too numerous for wild
predators, they were no match for humans. They were a favorite of
hunters for their meat and feathers, and were also targeted as pests and
for sport. A single blast of a shotgun could bring down as many as
fifty birds, and there was practically no limit on the number of birds a
hunter could take.Photo: John James Audubon
By 1850 the destruction was in full force, and by 1860 flocks of
passenger pigeons were greatly diminished. One of the last large nesting
colony arrived in Michigan in 1878, covering 40 square miles. Hunters
took down 50,000 birds a day over a five month period — over 90% of the
flock. In 1896 a lone hunter descended on one of the remaining roosts
and, seeing the opportunity to wipe out the last of the wild flocks,
exterminated 250,000 birds in just one day. By 1897 there were too few
surviving birds to re-establish the species, and in 1900 a 14-year-old
boy killed the last passenger pigeon in the wild. The few pigeons
remaining in captivity failed to breed.Photo: Ryan Somma
It is perhaps unlikely that the birds — noted for their stupidity —
would have survived as America became increasingly populated during the
20th century — even if they hadn't been hunted to extinction. Habitat
loss was also a factor in their demise, and given their need for
inhabiting forests in large numbers in order to survive, once the
forests started to disappear, the passenger pigeons may well have gone
the same way in any case — a tragic example of the incompatibility of
man's needs with those of the natural world.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5